Magebane Strategy Guide

Magebane (DotA: Antimage) Guide

Key
Intro
Stats
Skills
Stat Build
Item Build
Flashing Tactics
Heroes you Hate

Magebane is a very powerful character and should not be underestimated. A fed/well farmed Magebane can easily take on 3-4 players late game with appropriate items. Magebane’s ability as a hero is limited by the player’s ability to utilize his flash and by his knowledge about how other heroes interact with him.
He is a very squishy hero until late game. This fact generally causes him to go to top/bottom lanes. Seeing as how you can buy some of your items from the outpost, it’s best to go bottom as hellbourne and top as legion (if you are against a heavy pushing team, switch what I just said to the other lanes, so that you get tower defense). He has great magic resistance, but his physical resistance is lacking (ARMOR). His flash provides his magic defense as well as to teammates close by. However, do NOT push defensive items on him despite the fact that you are squishy; you are a DPS carry hero. There are some exceptions to that rule, however, which I will cover later.

Stats

Magebane has a meager strength increase (+1.6) and an amazing agility (+2.9) increase. His intellect increase (+1.5) is low, but that doesn’t matter at all. His base damage is reasonable for an agility hero. His base movespeed is amazing, at 320. He moves almost as fast as the creeps spawned by the legion/hellbourne. His initial armor 3.08 is low for melee agility heroes resulting in his early squishy game. However, he gains a solid .4 approx each level resulting in a max base armor of 15.26. This is a little low compared to other heroes but still gives a 15.6%/47.8% damage decrease respectively. As a melee hero, his base attack speed is 0.69 seconds, very good for him since the faster you attack, the more mana you steal. End game, his attack speed will be around .5 seconds.

Skills

Mana Combustion
This is your best skill, aside from the usefulness of Flash. You not only get rid of your opponent’s mana, but you also damage them (60% of mana lost) extra in the process. The 16/32/48/64 mana drained results in 9.6/19.2/28.8/38.4 health loss. Always remember this fact. While your attack damage will not look that high, Mana Combustion significantly adds on to your damage output. Additionally, if your opponent has no mana, he/she cannot cast spells, teleport, use items… you get the idea.
In DotA, you don’t see mana bars, so now it is much easier to tell when they have low mana (instead of manually checking).

Flash
This is your bread and butter skill, it allows you to escape, gank, move around the map quickly and enter team fights quickly (note, don’t go in first or you will die, let your tank, tank some damage (duh) and then Flash in. While the skill’s range increases from 1000/1075/1150/1150, the range increase really isn’t noticeable as shown below. However, what really makes leveling this skill great is the cooldown time, 12/9/7/5. At level 4, it allows you to move around with great speed and enter/exit team fights with ease. To give you an idea as to how fast you actually move with it, you can move from the middle of the river (mid-lane) to either fountain in 15 seconds easily with level 4 flash, with or without boots. Due to the importance of this skill, I will elaborate on it later, as it deserves its own section in this guide.
As an added bonus, Magebane’s old 3rd skill is now included in Flash, namely the temporary magic buff. The magic defense buff is not only good for you, but also for your teammates. The amount of magic armor put on yourself is drastically higher than that on your team, but it’s still a great effect. On yourself: +3/6/10/15 magic armor. This translates into a +9%/16%/23.4%/30.4% increase on your damage reduction. (Each level you get: 9%/7%/7.4%/7%). Since Magebane starts with 5.5 magic armor (24.8% reduction) you end up having 33.8%/40.8%/48.2%/55.2% magic damage reduction. Teammates in a 500 radius of where you teleported TO get a +2/3/4/5 magic armor buff. At max level, this ends up being approx. 15% buff to magic armor.




Original Flash, followed by a Level 1 Flash, followed by a level 3/4 Flash. It's a little hard to tell, but you end up going a little further (higher level lands on patch of grass, where level 1 does not).

Master of the Mantra
This is another fun skill, and in my opinion, better than his original passive in the third slot (as long as you’re good about keeping the passive from Flash up on yourself). This skill has an aura of radius 600, so slightly larger than your Flash radius. A good way of making sure that you’re in range of the casters is to make sure that they can hit you. Unless they are at their max range, most will be within your radius. The aura provides a -15/20/25/30 cast speed AND damages the hero for 35/30/65/80% of the manacost of abilities AND items. The individual increase in levels is: -15/5/5/5 cast speed and 35/15/15/15% damage increase. This is why you only take 1 level of this skill early game (at level 4, as I explain in Stat Build section) since the extra level does not amount to as much as the first level in this skill.
NOTE: a recent patch made it so heroes would not deny themselves from this effect, so you get the kill.

Mana Rift – ultimate
This is a skill that just keeps getting better and better as games go on. The more mana your enemies have, the happier you are.
Mana Cost: 125/200/275. The mana cost scales well, but is rather expensive early game due to your small mana pool. (Make sure to save 60 mana for a Flash!)
Damage: damages enemy units in a 325 aoe radius for .6/.85/1.1 Magic damage per point of mana lost. [(.6/.85/1.1)*x, where x=mana lost]
Cooldown: 120/100/80 seconds, 80 seconds is not that long of a cooldown when looking at some of the ult cooldowns (tree/tempest/etc.) Don’t be afraid to use it! Don’t save it and lose a kill (NOTE: don’t use it to get the last hit on a hero…that’s just overkill and an unnecessary waste of mana/time).
Superior Magic! Shrunken head doesn’t matter against this ult, destroy that pyro after he’s ulted you!
Ranged spell: 600 units. This means you don’t need to be in melee range to get that stun off so you can chase/finish a kill! Flash in, ult from a safe distance, and then flash away as his team tries to catch up with you.
AoE spell: If you don’t read the text closely, you might miss this small part and I really want to draw attention to this. Mana Rift is an AoE ult 325 radius around your target. Now, units caught in this aoe do NOT take damage based on the mana they have lost, no, they take damage based on the mana your TARGET has lost. Therefore, if you ult a caster with 0/little mana ALL enemy units (not just heroes) will take that magic damage, and that’s well over 1k damage going to everyone.
Stuns: it only stuns the primary target, but this can be used for many different purposes. My favorite is cancelling teleport spells right before they proc. You can also cancel channels, stun someone to run away (flash away so that they can’t instantly cast a spell on you).


Stat Build

1. Flash – ALWAYS get this, it allows you to escape and harass early game *
2-3. Mana Combustion
4. Flash/Master of the Mantra **
5. Mana Combustion
6. Mana Rift
7. Mana Combustion (MAXED)
8. Flash
9. Flash (MAXED) **
10. Master of the Mantra
11. Mana Rift
12-14. Master of the Mantra (MAXED)
15. Stats
16. Mana Rift
17-25. Stats

*As explained later
**This exception is caused from laning against, Nymphora, Thunderbringer, Pyromancer, Tempest, Defiler, Soul Reaper, Plague Rider. This will result in your Flash being maxed out at level 10, rather than level 9. NOTE: Unless you feel that you are REALLY being harassed badly by spells (ie. Thunderbringer), do not keep leveling this ability. This is because at level 1 you get a 35% boost, whereupon after that it’s only a 15% boost.


Item Build

This is a list of items that are viable on Magebane (NOTE: there is no order of importance to these items, this is due to different situations requiring different items and different play styles):
Abyssal Skull
Enhanced Marchers
Brutalizer
Daemonic Breast Plate
Wingbow
Shrunken Head
Geometer’s Bane –(Slash)
Helm of the Black Legion/Iron Shield – (I personally don’t like this item as it does nothing to increase your dps, but I’ve seen it used on Magebane many times).

-Please note that different play styles require different builds, which I have tried to compensate for by leaving the builds more open, but still detailed.
-I’m going to assume that these games are played in a 5v5 setting with the minimum amount of gold, 603 (assuming you didn’t repack).
-NOTE: this first build is the “ideal” build. I.e. not having to leave your lane early game etc… as you can see, I prefer rushing an abyssal skull because it allows you to neutral creep with ease and because you can buy most of the item in-lane. This item, however is not entirely necessary early game, as Slash is a viable item as well. If you choose to not neutral creep, pushing your Enhanced Marchers/Slash/Brutalizer is better.

Starting items: (555g)
-Trinket of Restoration – this will be turned into your abyssal skull and also provides regen
-2x Runes of the Blight – more regen to stay in the lane

While in lane (early game): (1900g)
~~With the increase in items in the outpost, you can stay in lane (assuming you don’t take too much damage) for a considerable amount of time.
-Punch Dagger first, then Gloves of the swift.
-Hungry Spirit – the reason you don’t get this first is because you don’t deal enough damage to make your 10% steal amount to much. Much better to deal more damage first.

Return to base: (1300g)
-Ring of the Teacher
-Abyssal Skull Recipe
-Marchers

Mid to late game: There are really 4 options you have here.
1. Shrunken Head – get this if they have a lot of stuns OR/AND if you see one of them farming towards a Totem of Kuldra (sheepstick) this item is a MUST in that case.
2. Geometer’s Bane – +10 str/ +30 agil/ +10 int/ +10%ms/ +15 IAS. Great item that drastically increases your damage output while increasing your movespeed. NOTE: your images will ALSO destroy mana/health (with abyssal skull). I personally tend to shy away from this item only because it does not provide any defense, although I will include it in this guide anyway. As an interesting combo, put this item in your top middle slot, so that you can W (Flash), then Alt+W Geometer's bane. Essentially, Flash in, and lock them, somewhat like Polly's Ult.
3. Wingbow – amazing item for Magebane. +30 damage/+30 agil/+30 attack speed/+30% evasion. The reason I like this item more than Geometer’s bane is solely due to the 30% evasion. It allows you to take MUCH more damage as the enemy will miss you a fair chunk of the time.
4. Brutalizer – this item is amazing on him. This synergizes well with flash blocking (explained later). The longer your opponents are stunned, the more hits gotten in, the more mana stolen, damage done… you get the idea. Additionally, it’s a great way to cancel channels without having to waste/use Mana Rift. The 1.4 seconds amounts to about 2-3 additional hits.

So farm a shrunken head if they are going for a Totem of Kuldra. If not, feel free to farm a Wingbow/Geometer’s bane. If you want to push a Brutalizer first, you will be fairly squishy in team fights so bear that in mind, although you will be able to destroy stragglers.

Alt build:
I still suggest to start with the Trinket of Restoration, due to the good regen, but get your Enhanced marchers and then push a Helm of the Black Legion. Again, I personally don’t feel that he needs the defense, but if you feel that the enemy team is going for you, get it. If you feel that you only need a little defense, push an iron shield since it is far cheaper.

Late Game:
You want to get one of the 4 items mentioned in the list above. Once you’ve finished that, you can either get a Shieldbreaker or sell your Abyssal Skull and replace it with a Symbol of Rage. I’m more impartial to Shieldbreaker since generally at this point in the game you’re already an unstoppable force and increasing your damage output drastically will just add to the effect.

Geometer’s Bane vs. Wingbow – to be honest, get whichever one you feel more comfortable with. I personally like the Wingbow since I don’t get any other defensive items (and solely rely on my ability to Flash out of danger).

Symbol of Rage – the recommended page says to purchase this item. Yes it has incredible life steal, but the length of time that it takes to farm this item makes its usefulness go down. Also, some of your damage is through your passive, which will NOT be included in health stolen. Also, when buying items late game, you want to push agility boosts since that is where your damage is coming from. The reason I like Abyssal Skull (vlad’s) more is because it is an aura, providing the life steal to your entire team and it provides a nice mana regen that can essentially ensure that you always have enough mana for Flash.



Flashing Tactics

-Flash blocking
This is an interesting tactic that allows you/your team to chase much more effectively. While Magebane has no stun of his own (aside from his ult) he can slow down an enemy unit by flashing directly in its pathway, thus forcing the unit to go AROUND Magebane. If you’re good at it, you can move “with” the unit, continually blocking his path instead of hitting him. This slow may not seem like much, but you can do it every 5 seconds, so it adds up. This skill takes reasonable practice to get the hang of but is very effective when done right.

-harassing early game with Flash
This tactic utilizes your ability to move much, much faster than your opponent. Once you hit level 3, you can begin this tactic. The way it works is you wait for your creep wave to kill your opponents wave, thus making him retreat. The instant this happens, Flash block him (as I just explained). This will make his hero bump into your hero, while you are attacking him, slowing him down additionally. In this time, you can get a good 2-3 hits in without having the next wave get to you. If you do this a number of times, your laning opponent will have little to no mana in no time.



-dodging spells
I'm using Pyromancer as an example because he's rather easy to dodge with Magebane, but the idea is the same across the board. As seen in the pictures below, you can dodge pyro's aoe stun by simply blinking away. Therefore, he wastes mana on stunning you. You can take this 1 of 2 ways, you can blink to your tower and play defensively, or you can blink right behind him and start meleeing. If you've got the health, this is the better option since the hero has to turn around to hit you, and has less spell damage to hit you with.



-tower diving
The idea behind tower diving is that you can blink out of the range of the tower, before the tower's damage will hit you. There are really 2 ways of doing this. A) When you see the first tower shot coming, blink RIGHT BEFORE it hits you, thus causing a "MISS" to appear, and you'll get hit at the other end of the tower range with at least one shot. The better way is to take the first damage, and Flash right before the SECOND. This Flash will put you out of range of the tower radius.


This is an example of Flashing out of the tower range. As you can see, the projectile is coming, but since I'm Flashing out, the projectile will go to where I was.

-running away
Be sneaky. Really, you can go OVER walls, instead of running back straight to spawn, have the enemies follow you and just when they are going to stop you, flash over a ridge that will take them a number of seconds to go AROUND. In that time, you’ll be long gone and well out of trouble.

-team fights
If the enemy is focusing on you (but you’re not stunned) Flash out. Under no circumstances, leave the fight. You Flashing out is not running away, you’re still within 1 Flash of getting right back into the mayhem. When you Flash out, the enemy team will focus on your remaining 4 players (unless you have a fail teammate >.<) Now, Flashing back in is a judgment call. Primarily, you’ll be flashing back in to help finish off a low hp hero/if your team is not fairing too well, come back in to spread out the damage (unless you’re too low health, in which case be very cautious in this case). Remember, AoE ult + stun! You can use it to run away!


Heroes you Hate

-Early game for Magebane is rough, no matter who you’re playing against, but after that…
-Moon Queen –(avoid her like the plague, her ult hurts, really.)
-Jeraziah – (do NOT melee him. He’ll laugh at you, and then heal himself/damage you with his remaining mana, and that’s a HUGE swing on you. Make sure he's stunned first).
-Behemoth – (aoe stuns suck and you’re squishy = dead before you can blink)
-Polly – (stun locks suck, and you know he’s going to farm a Totem of Kuldra)
-ANYONE WITH A TOTEM OF KULDRA – be afraid
-Succubus - She can mesmerize you, and then ult you (due to patch) BEFORE Mesmerize ends. This is scary because it not only locks you, but she get's mana back. [NOTE: Her ult is magic damage, so if you Flash in before she ults, you won't take much damage due to your Flash ability.] -{Thanks Fosfor!}
-Devourer –(Do not, for the love of god, blink in a straight line from him, or he’ll just claw you back in, but other than that he’s not that bad)
-Andromeda – (stun + switch = no running away, not entirely bad, but can be scary/fatal if her team is there to finish you off)
-Chronos – (if he’s farmed well, be scared, because his passive stun can cancel your blink animation, also his chronosphere sucks for you, but again, not too much of a problem)
-Teams that push a Ring of Sorcery on multiple units are also not friendly, since it means that you’re not denying their spell casting capability. 

 

This guide is from Heroes of Newerth Forum